Summer's Freedom Page 9

  “So, what do you need help with?”

  “This,” he said, and picked up one end of the sixty-inch drapery rod for the front picture window. “I’ve tried four times to get it hung, but it’s impossible with one person. I need you to brace it in the middle while I nail the ends.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  And it really should have been fairly simple, except the chair was just low enough to make it a stretch for Maggie to reach the center of the rod, and Joel had to return to the toolbox for different nails twice. Each time he whispered by her, she felt the aura of his body slam into her torso, a portion that seemed unnaturally exposed in her stretched position. Her awareness of him exaggerated a minute into a deep, still length of time, and she felt an absurd need to catch a bit more air into her lungs.

  “You better hurry, Joel. I can’t stand here like this all day.”

  He stood up. “What if I tickled you right now?” he said in his raspy voice.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” The thought of his hands touching her exposed middle section set her nerves whirring from her eyelids to her shins. When a wisp of something curled around her ankle, she started, gave a strangled yelp—and tumbled right off the chair.

  Joel snagged her, laughing, his powerful arms pulling her against his chest.

  For one long, dazed second, she stared at the column of his throat, watching it move with the rumbling sound she could feel vibrating against her palms and into her belly.

  He looked down at her. “It was only the cat. Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, and made a move to release herself.

  He tightened his arms. “I kind of like this,” he said, one hand moving on her spine.

  Fighting the impulse to dissolve against him as she had the night before, Maggie said breathlessly, “We’re only supposed to see each other in broad daylight and in the company of lots of other people.”

  He released her gently. “Come on. Let’s get this curtain rod up.”

  Oddly deflated, Maggie nodded and climbed back onto the chair. They finished the job without incident, and Maggie headed for the door.

  Joel snagged her hand. “It was an excuse, you know—the curtain rod.”

  “Was it? For what?”

  “To see you.” His fingers sandwiched hers. The skin on his hands was dry and cool. “Go out with me tonight.”

  “Joel—“she began, her fear a palpable thing. If she continued to spend time with him, eventually her defenses would give way—they would become lovers.

  He half grinned and the dimples flashed, making him look more like a teenager than a full-grown man. As always, it disarmed her. “You’re still afraid of me,” he said.

  She drew her hand away from his and adopted her most sensible tone. “Joel, I’m not a woman who indulges in casual sex. I’m also not made of stone.” She swallowed, forcing herself to look at him to say the next words. They weren’t children, after all. “I can’t be with you so much and not want to…well…” She paused.

  “I know,” he said, as if her confession was not a confession at all. He made a move to touch her, then crossed his arms over his chest. “I also understand and respect your wishes. We’ll go get some supper—maybe Giuseppe’s or something.” He reached to brush a finger over her arm. “I won’t even hold your hand,” he said with a smile. “Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Maggie laughed. “You wretch. You know I want to say yes.”

  “What time?”

  “I’ll be ready about six-thirty,” she said, moving toward the door. “And I have to be in by ten-thirty.”

  Joel nodded, trying to push the fullness from his chest, a fullness of anticipation that made him feel younger than he had ever felt, more alive than he had ever thought he’d be. “I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  Although Maggie tried to keep her mind on the moment at hand throughout the afternoon she spent with Samantha and her grandmother, she knew she was distracted. She barely tasted lunch, her mind was so focused on the upcoming dinner. She listened with a vague smile to the conversation between Anna and Samantha as they all lazily window-shopped, her mind floating toward Joel, wherever he was.

  Her preoccupation didn’t go unnoticed. “You look like the cat that ate the canary,” Anna said, tapping Maggie on the arm.

  “She went over to Joel’s house this morning,” Sam added teasingly. “When she came back, her face was full of color.”

  Maggie thanked the stars that she didn’t blush, and ducked her head to hide her expression. Denying Sam’s statement would only lead to more teasing, more protestations—so she kept quiet.

  “Must be something,” Anna said to Sam. “She always clams up when it’s something big.”

  Maggie felt a grin stretch her mouth. “Come on, you guys,” she pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t you trust us?” Sam teased.

  “I trust you,” she said, and shrugged. “I just feel silly.”

  “I’d feel silly over a man like that myself,” Anna said.

  Maggie laughed. “Okay, okay. I’m going out to dinner with him tonight. It’s no big deal.” She ignored the exchange of triumphant glances between Anna and Sam, pointing to the display of dolls in a toy store window. “Look at Rapunzel.”

  “Do you remember when we used to come here when you were a little girl?” Anna said.

  “Of course.”

  “You never let me out of going there. We spent hours looking at those dolls.” She frowned quizzically. “Didn’t you finally get one?”

  “Yes, don’t you remember? Galen saved for a year when he was fourteen to buy me Beth from Little Women for Christmas.”

  “Uncle Galen did that?” Sam asked. “Gee, I don’t think I could save money for that long.”

  “He’s not like anyone else in the world,” Maggie said fondly. She touched her grandmother’s arm. “He’s going to come here for his vacation this summer—I don’t think I told you.”

  Samantha stopped in her tracks. “When?”

  “I’m not sure. But if you’re still in Denver, we might be able to work it out for you to come down for a few days. I’m sure your father won’t object.”

  Anna sniffed audibly. Maggie smiled to herself.

  “You notice how she changed the subject?” Sam said, winking.

  “Let’s go find some underclothes for you,” Maggie said, resolutely ignoring the comment.

  “My favorite part,” Anna said.

  “Just remember, Gram. This isn’t Paris.”

  Anna waved her hand in dismissal. “A woman with beautiful underwear is a beautiful woman.”

  * * *

  It was a sentiment Maggie tried to remember later as she slipped into the fragile chemise her grandmother had pushed into her hands at the last minute. She didn’t feel very beautiful as she tried to decide what to do with her hair, which blouse to wear, which earrings.

  She was ready too early. Her palms were sweaty, her heart unsteady. With an edge of hysteria, Maggie thought, I’m as nervous as a twelve-year-old!

  She tried to trick herself into a state of calm by watering the handful of neglected plants that struggled to survive in various corners around the house. She wiped the counters in the kitchen, straightened the magazines on the coffee table, plumped the pillows on the couch.

  When the doorbell rang, she was perched uneasily on the edge of a kitchen chair, staring at the newspaper. The bell sent an additional—and definitely unnecessary—surge of adrenaline through her veins, making her hands tremble so violently she could barely open the door.

  The lunacy of her reaction struck her as she opened the door to Joel. He wore a crisp, pale gray shirt with slender rose and blue stripes, open at the neck, and his freshly washed hair still showed shower dampness. His dark cheeks were newly shaved, and he smelled like soap and cologne.

  Although she felt the familiar leap in her pulse at the pleasure of looking at him, she also realized he was much
more than handsome. He was a man she’d grown to like very much the past few weeks, a man whose company made her feel warm and comfortable in spite of the leaping sexual awareness he aroused. The knowledge calmed her as nothing else could have. “Hi,” she said. “You look great.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. So do you.”

  “Let me grab a jacket and I’ll be ready to go.” She took a jacket from the coatrack near the door and folded it over her arm.

  “No purse?”

  “I know it’s ridiculous, but I never got the knack of carrying one,” she said, stepping out onto the porch. “I buy clothes with pockets, instead.”

  “Seems to work for me.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Maggie said as she walked with him to his truck. “You’d look silly with a purse.”

  He half grinned, a habitual gesture of irony. “Bet no one would question my right to carry it.”

  She laughed. “Probably not.”

  * * *

  Giuseppe’s, an Italian restaurant in a transformed train depot, was crowded. As they waited in the foyer for a table, Maggie said, “This is beautiful. I’ve never been here—at least since it’s been a restaurant.”

  “I think you’ll like it.” With a twinkle in his eye, he added, “I knew I’d have to pick someplace where they really feed you.”

  “Are you implying that I’m a big eater?”

  He squeezed her hand playfully. “Honey, I’ve seen you eat.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows with a smile. In a mirror along the wall, she caught sight of a well-tended young woman eyeing Joel surreptitiously, her gaze sweeping over him with deep appreciation. Almost as if the woman felt Maggie noticing, she glanced up and caught Maggie’s eyes in the mirror. With an apologetic smile, she shrugged as if to say, I couldn’t help myself. Maggie grinned and tried to remember what the conversation had been about before she’d been distracted. “I’m probably going to be fat as Santa Claus by the time I’m fifty.”

  “I don’t think so.” Lazily and boldly, he let his gaze wander over her body, and Maggie felt an answering tingle follow behind each spot as his eyes passed it. She shifted.

  “Our table is ready,” she said, thankful for the distraction.

  The hostess led them through a narrow aisle to a booth in the back. The sounds of dozens of diners, racy music on the speakers, the chatter of the busboys and the waitresses calling out their orders gave the air a charged excitement. Maggie breathed in the atmosphere, smelling garlic and tomatoes and brewing coffee. Their booth was nestled in a stone cove, a private and intriguing spot.

  After examining every item, Maggie finally took Joel’s advice and ordered the lasagna. As they settled back to wait for the meal, Maggie asked, “Are you really a bad cook?”

  Joel laughed. “Worse than bad. I don’t know how.”

  “Why don’t you learn?”

  “Oh, I am, slowly. The microwave helps.”

  “What I don’t understand is why it’s taken you so long,” Maggie said with a hint of reproof. “No woman would play helpless like that.”

  He shrugged good-naturedly. “I’ve always had someone to cook for me.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  It seemed an innocent enough question, but Maggie sensed his walls coming up in defense, saw them in the odd set of his shoulders and jaw. He shrugged.

  “You have a lot of secrets, Joel Summer,” she said. “One day I hope you can share some of them.”

  He swallowed and looked at her. “I hope so, too.”

  She let the mystery drift away. For now it was enough to laugh at the stories they told each other. Maggie heard herself making humorous things that had been terribly painful at the time they happened, laughing ruefully at the overly serious and sensitive child she had been. She even managed to caricature her father to the point that she could laugh just a little, even about him.

  Joel listened and laughed and offered tidbits of his own life: the way he had manipulated dinner conversations to start arguments between his sisters, the panic he once had when he wrecked his parents’ car at the age of seventeen, the practical jokes he’d played on teachers.

  When the food came, Maggie salted and peppered her dish, then added a generous helping of grated Romano cheese. She glanced up to find Joel watching her. “Did I miss something?”

  “I bet you like chili dogs with onions and cheese, too, don’t you?”

  Maggie grinned. “And anything else sloppy and greasy and full of preservatives. Samantha is always after me to alter my diet to include some fresh vegetables.”

  “Don’t you get heartburn?”

  “Not yet.” She looked at him. “You don’t like sloppy food?”

  He shook his head. “I was one of those kids who divided his plate into sections. I ate all the peas, then all the roast, then the carrots—like that.”

  “Did you have a system, or did you just start with whatever looked good at the time?”

  “Color coded. Lightest to darkest.”

  Maggie swallowed. “Really?”

  He concentrated for a moment on cutting his food, then swept his glittering blue eyes open to meet hers. “No.” He smiled.

  “Oh, you.” Maggie tsked and bit into her lasagna. “You were the kind of boy I wanted to drown in a water fountain when I was in junior high.”

  “Probably. And I would have put frogs in your locker because I knew it.”

  After their dinner, Joel said, “I’ve got dessert in the truck.”

  “In the truck?”

  He grinned, picking up the check. “Don’t give me that suspicious look—I promised, didn’t I?” He stood up and held out a hand. “I have a surprise for you.”

  She hesitated a moment more, then shook her head with a smile and let him help her up. As she followed him out, she thought she liked the boyishness of his personality. He was mature, even serious where it concerned matters of the world and his career, but the unquenchable boy within allowed him to wring every drop of pleasure from a good moment.

  He drove to a hilly park located in the middle of one of the most frantic areas of the city. As he drove past houses built at the edges of the wooded park, heading for the summit of a hill, he remarked, “When I was a kid, there was nothing out here at all.”

  “I never came out this far. My grandmother’s always lived on the west side.”

  “I’m told,” he said with a wicked smile, “that a great many children were conceived under the shelter of these trees.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows and refused to acknowledge the gambit.

  “Did you ever park in high school?” he asked.

  “I’m not telling,” she said with a laugh. “Did you?”

  “I’d lie and say I did, even if I hadn’t, wouldn’t I?”

  “I guess men do have an image to uphold.”

  “Better believe it.”

  He turned the truck into a level parking area that overlooked the expanding eastern edge of the city. “Do you want a beer?” he asked, turning off the engine.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s sit outside. It’s beautiful tonight.”

  He fished two bottles of beer out of a cooler in the back of the truck and spread a blanket on the ground for them to sit on.

  “What about dessert?” Maggie asked, teasing.

  “Oh.” He held up one finger and scrambled in the glove compartment, bringing out two Hershey’s bars.

  “Beer and chocolate?”

  “Don’t knock it till you try it.” He handed her one of the candy bars, then settled down next to her on the blanket, cross-legged and comfortable.

  “Did you come here with your wife?” Maggie asked. As soon as the words left her lips, she wanted to call them back.

  But Joel didn’t seem to mind. “Only with her. We met in ninth grade.” He held up his bottle to the shimmering glow of red and green and white lights from below, seeming to measure them through the golden beer. “How about you?”

  “I wa
s too afraid of my father to do any of that. If I had shown up with a hickey on my neck or something, he would have killed me.”

  “A hard core.” Joel nodded. “Where is he now?”

  Maggie lifted one shoulder. “I have no idea. My mother divorced him when I was seventeen, and we never heard a word from him again.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.”

  “Don’t be.” She lifted her head. “All he ever did was make us miserable, anyway.” She looked at him, at the disbelief in his eyes. “Really.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “You need to forgive him, Maggie.”

  “For what? I think he did the best he could,” she said lightly. But in contrast to her words, in her memory her father hacked away hunks of her brother’s hair as Galen screamed. She looked at Joel. “I really don’t like to talk about my father.”

  “Okay,” he answered easily.

  “How are your birds?” Maggie asked, lifting her beer.

  “We got a bald eagle today—gunshot in the wing.”

  “A bald eagle? Isn’t that against the law?”

  Wryly, he said, “So is burglary.”

  “I know, but although I don’t approve of burglary, I can understand the profit motive behind it. Why would anyone shoot an eagle?”

  “The feathers alone will bring in a fortune, not to mention the trophies of heads and feet.” He sighed. “People are responsible for almost all the injuries we see. The birds get stuck in traps, are poisoned by pesticides or shot.”

  “All because of the feathers?” Maggie asked incredulously.

  “No, not at all. That’s mainly eagle feathers—the hawks and falcons and vultures are shot because people don’t really understand them. Farmers think hawks will carry off their baby animals.” He used his hands to draw on the air. “Most of the other kinds of problems are accidental.”

  “Will they carry off babies?” She thought she could understand a shooting based on protecting baby animals.

  “Maybe, once in a while. But killing the birds isn’t the answer. It’s like killing coyotes because they steal a few chickens—pretty soon you’re overrun with rodents of all kinds.”

  “The big birds keep the rodents under control?”